AusBonsai

Webos wrote:I was talking to Boon about this tree yesterday, and he reckons it's too tall. He thinks I should develop the tree from that group of low branches on the right hand side of the tree.

What do you think?

mate, i think you should decide on what you want and what you like, if you like the tree taller, make it taller, if you think it well suit a smaller tree then make it smaller, if you make it smaller it will give the tree a stockier more masculine feel, i think this will still be pulled of at the taller size aswell though with all the deadwood and shear size of the tree!

i know you are asking design advice but i think in the end what the tree becomes is in the eye of the beholder, you!

good luck mate


jamie

Gday guys,
As per the questions about the species, I dug about 10 of these trees of which 7 survived..(The best 2 didnt make it unfortunately..now a year later I am still sad about losing them!) Some of them still had tags from when they were planted back in the 80's! The first tree, I'm not sure exactly what it is, I've been meaning to get a sample down to conifer gardens to see if they might be able to help me work it out. The 2nd tree, I think, is a Juniperus Squamata "Holger" No bad smell when crushed, just that lovely conifer smell we all know. All of the trees that had tags were varieties of Junipers.

I've added a photo of the back of the tree (before it was styled). You can see the little green wire tie that was used to tie the tag on...It is embedded in the tree now!

webos, you said that a couple died? did you keep them for the deadwood? the would of came in really handy for tanuki/phoenix style bonsai.

just an after thought obviously, you probly dont have them.


jamie

Yes i did keep them for Deadwood. They've been sitting in my yard for a year waiting. I cry every time I see them there.

Webos wrote:Yes i did keep them for Deadwood. They've been sitting in my yard for a year waiting. I cry every time I see them there.

ahhh dont cry pal! carve em out, get em looking wicked, grab some shimpaku whips and make a sweet as tree from it


jamie

Spot on Jamie....If you're gonna make a sneaky badger tree,it's a big advantage having the right deadwood,It's not exactly lying around our native bushlands! (juniper that is) .....Dog

Was a while ago, but an update on the 2 trees. First one didnt make it. Unfortunate but thats the way it goes sometimes. 2nd tree is going strong, putting on a lot of growth. The more it puts on, the more I think it will be a better tree by losing the top half. I think I'm going to take the top of in the next month or two. Cant wait to do the work, I think it will be an instant tree.

It's been a long time, but here is the tree that I'd worked on with Robert Steven a few years back. About a year later, I decided that I wanted a more compact tree, and Robert's design, although awesome, was massive... too massive for my liking.

Restyled shorter, then taken to Boon at the recent Melbourne AABC Seminar for some expert tweaking.. here we have the tree today. You'll probably agree that its a completely different tree to the one in the previous photographs.

The future plan would be to graft it with Shimpaku foliage

Enjoy

Adam

That is looking great Adam, a wonderful project. I think lots of pinching and wiring of the foliage would certainly give you a tighter and more compact foliage. i pinch mine weekly to fortnightly.

At the moment the primary aim to thicken branches in the right places rather than refine the foliage. When the time is right, i'll be pinching like crazy!